Over the past year and a half that I have been Athletic Director, I have been working with several groups in an effort to update our Quarrier mascot. This process has been met with everything from excitement to anger, with a whole lot of miscommunication mixed in. Hopefully, this article will help clear up our intentions.

First off, let me define or identify “our.” I am part of a mascot committee made up of representatives from the booster club, coaching staff, students, administration and fine arts, In all, eight members meet once each month with one goal in mind: come up with approximately four mascot/logo choices that will be put out to students, staff and the public for a vote. We are hoping to have these choices ready this spring, but as we are finding, things don’t always go as quickly as we’d like.

Secondly, let me explain why we are doing this. It is a simple question: When you think of your favorite sports team’s mascot, what image comes to your mind? My guess is that there is only one image that you think of. (Hopefully, there are a lot of pictures of that sweet Duke Blue Devil floating around in people’s minds right now.) Well, this past fall I sent a student around our school to take pictures of any Quarrier mascot he could find. In about 20 minutes he returned with over 10 different “Quarrier” designs.

This is simply why we need to update our mascot – we don’t have just one. We are and will always be the Quarriers, but we do not have a single, consistent icon that is ours and is recognizable as the Quarrier. We live in a highly advanced technological age compared to that of the 1960s when our current and most popular mascot was drawn. As a result, any time we want to print posters, rugs, banners, etc., we do not have an image with a resolution high enough for most companies to use. So they simply have their graphic people draw one. We feel this is unacceptable and is exactly why we need an updated mascot.
Finally, let me address some of the possibilities for an update. I have been in contact with professional graphic artists as well as students and professors from local universities who are in the process of helping us with this project. In discussing our vision for a Quarrier mascot with these artists, we have explained that one option is simply to draw with minimal changes our current, most popular icon into an appropriately pixelated format. We have also explained that we would like to see stronger, sleeker, more proud versions and choices– much along the lines that some of the local colleges have done. USD’s Charlie Coyote went from a mascot that resembled Wiley Coyote to the fierce Coyote we see on the USD logo today.

Change can be really tough for some folks and sometimes nothing is broken so there is no need for change. However, in this case it is quite obvious that the time for change or at least an update is now. For 23 years I have been a Quarrier, and I couldn’t be prouder of that, my community and my school. For some it might just be a superficial thing, but I want there to be one recognizable Quarrier mascot that symbolizes the pride and strength of our students at Dell Rapids High School and the people of Dell Rapids.